The Cavaliers are hot garbage right now

The Cleveland Cavaliers were blown out by the New York Knicks on Sunday, completing a miserable five-game stretch that should be embarrassing for any squad who calls themselves a playoff team, much less a title contender. This is their worst five-game stretch since LeBron James returned, and it’s not close. Seriously: The Cavaliers are hot garbage right now.

Disclaimer: It doesn’t matter what the Cavaliers do during the regular season.

It’s a combination of the losses, the opponents, and how bad Cleveland looks. Consider the last five games: A 21-point loss to Orlando, a win against Chicago despite trailing for three quarters, a five-point loss to Brooklyn, a 22-point loss to New Orleans, and now a 19-point defeat at the hands of the Knicks. The Pelicans and Magic may be better than we think, but those four teams combined to finish more than 100 games under .500 last season.

The Cavaliers are always bad during the regular season, because they don’t care about the regular season.

Their defense is hideous right now. 114 points to the Knicks!? Derrick Rose is a disaster — the team is being outscored by a minus-13.2 net rating when he’s on the court, and that’s not even counting his minus-22 against New York on Sunday. J.R. Smith and Kevin Love both have miserable on-court net ratings in their minutes, too. Love is especially worrisome, since he should be the second-best player on the Cavaliers every night until Isaiah Thomas returns.

We panicked about the Cavaliers last season, and the one before that, and even the one before that.

Cleveland is deep with one-dimensional players. When they play Rose, Love, Smith, Jeff Green, Kyle Korver, sometimes Channing Frye, and eventually Isaiah Thomas, they cannot have a top-10 defense. It simply won’t be possible with that many poor defensive players. Rose may become redundant once Thomas returns, and Crowder should steal more of Green’s minutes. Love and Smith can play average defense in the right circumstances, but the Cavaliers aren’t setting up anyone for success right now. Seriously, why is Crowder only playing 25 minutes per night?

Cleveland playing bad in October doesn’t mean a damn thing, because they’ve proven it doesn’t.

This is the first time that the Cavaliers have been under .500 since LeBron James’ first year back in Cleveland, when the team was 19-20 before pulling it together. James picking up the pace down the road isn’t a cure-all. This team doesn’t need a bandaid; it needs to amputate some of its weakest defensive players from the rotation, no matter how difficult that might be. And yet even an amputation would leave the Cavaliers without a limb, and that certainly isn’t enough to come close to beating Golden State in the finals. They might even struggle getting there again, although it’s hard to see any of these teams in a desolate Eastern Conference knocking off LeBron James.

We’re going to look like idiots for even hinting that there would be trouble when they sweep through to the finals. Right?

Once again, Cleveland is asking everything and more of LeBron James. Thomas’ potential January return isn’t fixing any defensive problems. It almost seems impossible that James will damn near single-handedly be able to carry this team to their lofty goals. Right?

Let’s make these two narratives converge for some reasonable, lukewarm #TAKES as a conclusion. Yes, the Cavaliers are playing horrible basketball. Yes, their defense is a massive reason for it. Yes, their rotation is full of poor defenders. Yes, this is the easiest correlation in the history of correlation.

Cleveland isn’t going to miss the playoffs. It would be a huge upset for them to lose before the finals, especially after Gordon Hayward’s injury in Boston. They’ve righted three leaky ships in three regular seasons in time for the postseason. That shouldn’t undermine the serious effort and a few difficult decisions regarding rotations that lie ahead of them to right said ship.